The National Geographic Magazine
Florinda was happy when her kitchen was
complete with a table out of doors for wash
ing dishes. Natives use this arrangement be
cause it keeps the house dry and gives the
pigs a chance to clean up scraps.
For every meal we had rice and black beans
as a foundation for whatever else there might
be. We had eggs for breakfast and supper
and sometimes for dinner, and I learned many
new combinations of these staples.
A "Spoon" for Every Mouthful
Tortillas are the Mexican substitute for
bread. The corn is soaked in lime water,
brought to a boil to permit removal of the
tough husk, and then ground on the metate
(grinding stone) to the consistency of a fine
grained dough. This dough is patted into flat
cakes and baked on a flat earthenware pan,
metal sheet, or stone.
A Mexican visitor explained that his peo
ple are more fastidious than we, because they
use a different spoon for every mouthful-a
piece of tortilla.
Rice is served white, yellow, or red. Mexi
cans fry it in lard and then add water, chicken
broth, or metate-ground tomato paste. Each
kernel is separate and is never greasy or sticky.
The beans were put on to cook first thing
in the morning. By noontime they had
achieved a soupy consistency and made a fine
gravy for the rice. By evening they were
thick and heavy, and ready to be fried alone
or mixed with eggs, fried dry, and garnished
with bananas. For breakfast Florinda often
made gordas, or "fat cakes," by grinding some
leftover beans with her corn on the metate
and frying the cakes instead of baking them.
Eggs are rarely boiled and never poached.
Usually they are scrambled with onion, pepper,
and tomato, or made into Spanish omelette.
Mexicans, too, use slang phrases for various
ways of serving.
"On horseback'
means
"sunny side up" on rice.
"Ranch style' means
fried and simmered in a hot sauce with re
sults similar to shirred eggs. This hot sauce
consists of red or green chile peppers, tomato,
onion, and herbs, ground with a small stone
pestle in the same type of rasped-interior
earthenware vessel that we frequently en
countered in the excavations.
For every meal we had some variation of
this highly seasoned sauce. On my return to
Washington I had trouble again getting used
to the mildness of our flavorings.
Our meat supply depended on the village
slaughterer. It was always a red-letter day
when a cow was butchered. Without refrig
eration, no time could be lost. For two days
we could have beef. To our lot fell the
"steaks," the choice cut of the animal. These
so-called steaks were like thin cuts of bottom
round, with no fat to make them tender and
no aging to give them flavor.
Florinda pounded chile and salt into the
meat and broiled it over wood coals. When
it was served, she garnished it with raw
onions and little wild tomatoes. The treat
ment of the meat and the cooking over the
wood coals made it taste like our barbecues.
The strips left over for the next day were
salted and hung from a nail over the fagon.
Now and then swarms of ants would locate
the meat during the night, but the girls merely
brushed off the black coat nonchalantly be
fore proceeding to cook it.
The second-day beef we had in some form
of hash or stew.
Florinda boiled it, and
then she and Ramona laboriously cut it into
small pieces with a machete. Sometimes they
pulled it apart with their fingers or ground
it fine on a metate. To satisfy me, they duti
fully used our meat grinder a few times.
When they complained that the flavor was not
satisfactory, I permitted them to return to
their tedious methods.
My favorite use of the leftover meat was
as stuffing for plantains, a variety of large
banana. The shredded meat was seasoned
with onion and native herbs, and the mixture
fried to blend the flavors. The plantains were
then stuffed and fried. The result was a dish
delicious enough to make a reputation for
any restaurant.
This same hash we used as a filling for
empanadas, little meat turnovers with a crust
made of tortilla paste. Sometimes we had
empanadas with a filling of the typical tropical
white curd of cheese or of beans.
For variety Florinda also prepared us stuffed
mashed potato balls, meat balls, and stuffed
peppers.
Since we were living in the Tropics, pork was
more available than beef, but because we were
in the Tropics none of us cared to eat much
of it. However, we forgot caution now and
then to enjoy Florinda's prize tamales. Pork
is to a tamale what corned beef is to cabbage.
There are substitutes but none so good.
Chicken Dinners Arrive "on the Hoof"
Chickens were always plentiful. At home
chicken is one of my favorite foods, but I
soon learned why my husband didn't care for
it after his years of experience in the Tropics.
The girls would bring in a scrawny bird on
the hoof.
There isn't an ounce of excess fat on these
chickens, and at best they should be stewed
several hours. But time never permitted.
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